He was a con artist with a Nobel Prize. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc
Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
261–270 of 284 posts
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fine
It shouldn't be expressed as a universal then: "you never really want an object, you only want the wanting"
can you explain how an oil change is an object, otherwise it seems like you've got the wrong predicate. Knowledge isn't an object, either. Neither is "Kung Fu", "taking a shower", or "crossing the road."
I would like my own suborbital two-seat rocket plane. That is an object. I probably will never have a two-seat rocket plane. I would like to win the lottery when it's over $300mm, the object would be the $150mm in after-tax winnings. I will probably never have $150mm in lottery winnings.
I very specifically mentioned the lottery so maybe it "clicks" what's being talked about, at least the way i read it.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#263Anyone know why it seems that Feynman is coming under attack lately - most prominently by You Tuber Angela Collier whose "the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" now has nearly 1M views? I don't understand it at all.
I suppose its the evolution of destroying everything that the previous generation likes in an effort to prove wrongdoing and their own modern superiority.
It's why OK Boomer is an insult.
But what do I know.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Honestly, my problem with the video in question is that its tone unjustly attempts to denigrate Feynman (starting with the clickbaity title itself, a sham legacy? really?) by trying to frame the narrative that his supposed works were not his to begin with. The video is not about denigrating Feynman. The "sham" legacy refers not to Feynman's legacy as a physicist, which is undisputed. The "sham" legacy refers to Fey…
I'm sorry but didn't we already establish that most of his famous books are the edited contents of his recordings with some of those audios available to download as well? Does a person have to actually sit down and write it out and dictations don't count?
I already addressed the editorializing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43138957
Might not reply to this anymore, because a lot of these comments are people criticizing the video content they imagine in their heads based on the title only, not having watched the video.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see. In a strict sense, yes, published books like Surely You're Joking and its sequel, The Feynman Lectures, QED, etc. weren't "written" by Feynman himself. But the statement "never wrote a book", without a lot of context (which might be in the video or Gleick's biography, but wasn't in the post I responded to), suggests that Feynman didn't create the content that's in the books, but someone else did and Feynman to…
I don't think the problem people have is "Richard Feynman didn't produce content" It's "the content that people interacted with that they formed an opinion on "Richard Feynman" from was actually editorialized and published by other people" They're not trying to take credit from Feynman, theyre trying to divorce the character of "Feynman" as written by these authors from the real historical person
To the extent that the character of "Feynman" as he appears in books like Surely You're Joking is different from the real historical person, I think the difference is due to Feynman himself--the way he told the stories orally to people like Leighton. I don't think it's due in any significant measure to people like Leighton "editoralizing" when they wrote up the stories for publication.
So again, I think "never wrote a book" is misleading if it gives the impression that the portrayal of Feynman in such books was not Feynman's own portrayal of himself. It was.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#266Too bad he did not live that exceptionally long despite such an exceptional mind and accomplishments. Life is weird in that way.
To amplify your point, life is indeed weird that way. Feynmann's 69 while, as you say, is not exceptionally long was at least average for men in American in the 1980s. As a far too minimal smattering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann only made it to age 53. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Riemann only to 39. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois barely escaped his teens.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a problem with your early math tutors: especially with geometry, all the examples you bring up have been taught with "what it means". I mean, squares and cubes are just multiplication by the same factor: I distinctly remember even trapezoid surfaces, pyramid volumes being demonstrated by chopping and piecing parts together.
In the US especially, too many programs have an insistence that doing things with symbols and doing things with shapes and solids are completely different things and don't relate the two.
Primary school programs? Secondary school programs?
I could understand that in high school and uni when you need to move past "intuitive" maths into abstractions, but I'd be perplexed if this is really the "program", and not just an individual teacher (and surely, a big chunk of them too)!
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
It shouldn't be expressed as a universal then: "you never really want an object, you only want the wanting"
can you explain how an oil change is an object, otherwise it seems like you've got the wrong predicate. Knowledge isn't an object, either. Neither is "Kung Fu", "taking a shower", or "crossing the road." I would like my own suborbital two-seat rocket plane. That is an object. I probably will never have a two-seat rocket plane. I would like to win the lottery when it's over $300mm, the object would be the $150mm in af…
Fresh oil in a car engine is an object.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
We(by which I mean a person who knows how to ride a bike) do understand how to ride a bike. The problem in communicating that is a riding a bike is a skilled act. that is you cant get good at riding a bike by reading about it, and it is very hard to describe a well trained skill, it boils down to "practice a lot" which makes nobody happy.
One of the reasons you can’t get good at riding a bike by reading about it is that we literally don’t understand the mechanics of bike riding. It’s a currently unsolved problem in physics. Google it if you do t believe me! So I get what you’re saying, but it is maybe not the optimal example.
It’s not. Google harder.
Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took up social dancing in my 20s, including salsa and Argentinian tango. I think that it is a very good way to experience the difference between being very good at something and being able to teach. I've been on courses with some people that are clearly exceptionally good at dancing but are a bit lacking when it comes to teaching. Then I've had the pleasure of having teachers that, while still very good at dancing,…
I think teaching requires not only that you understand how to do something, but also what someone else's incomplete understanding is. You need to address the root cause as to why the other person's understanding is so lacking, like your examle with the tango dancer, instead of pointing out that a move is wrong and not giving the tools to prevent it. There may be many paths to reaching similar understandings, and a te…
> I think teaching requires not only that you understand how to do something, but also what someone else's incomplete understanding is.
This 100%. I have been playing guitar since around 1972, and am really good at it. I will never offer lessons to anyone, at any level, because that is a completely different skill than just being able to play a guitar.
I also know instructors at bootcamps that are not master programmers, in fact more than a few don't meet senior-level expectations; but they are exceptional at explaining the basics, triggering those "lightbulb" moments in their students, that makes them a far better instructor than someone with vastly more experience and expertise.